The Forget-Me-Not Summer (42 page)

Avril laughed again. ‘Then you can imagine how
flabbergasted I was when my posting came through,' she said as Miranda slammed the driver's door shut, locked it and then went round to secure the passenger door. When she re-joined Avril on the pavement she took careful stock of her friend before suggesting that they might go down to the Foundry Bridge, over the river Wensun. ‘There's a food outlet, a big van, parked down by the river. All the forces personnel go there, knowing his grub's good and cheap. We can pick up a bottle of pop and a couple of sandwiches and go and sit on the river bank and talk.' She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘We've got a couple of hours before I've got to drive the gharry back to the station, so we can sit and watch the boats and catch up. Agreed?'

Avril agreed with enthusiasm, saying that after twelve hours in stuffy railway carriages or on almost equally stuffy station platforms she would appreciate a quiet time in the fresh air. ‘I crossed the bridge near the station, and thought the river banks, with the willows leaning over the water, looked really attractive,' she said. ‘Another day, perhaps we could take a boat out . . .' But by now they had reached the van, and when they got to the head of the queue Miranda greeted the owner with a cheerful grin and asked what was tonight's special.

‘Well, how hungry are you, together?' he asked, in a rich Norfolk accent, eyeing them judiciously. ‘I guess you had a cookhouse meal earlier so you won't want a sausage sandwich . . .'

‘A sausage sandwich will be fine, Claude,' Miranda said quickly. She knew all too well that if she did not make up her mind at once Claude would run through his entire stock, for he liked to please his customers.
Having made a decision Miranda added a bottle of pop and two paper cups, then handed over her money, and armed with a fat sandwich each the girls hurried towards the river. Presently, settled beneath the branches of a willow, Miranda watched as Avril took a big bite out of her sandwich, grinned, and nodded.

‘This sausage tastes pre-war, and the bread's delicious,' she announced. ‘Pour me some pop, would you?'

Miranda complied, saying as she did so: ‘So you appreciate our Claude's grub, do you? I believe his mother makes the bread, or perhaps it's Claude himself; at any rate he doesn't approve of the national loaf and always serves homemade stuff. And now let me have a proper look at you.'

She scanned her friend from the top of her flaxen head to her well-polished air force issue black shoes. ‘You're thinner. Now I wonder why that is? Everyone tells you that the girls on balloons get extra rations because it's such hard work; but of course the work itself might have slimmed you down. And don't think I'm criticising, 'cos you look grand. I expect you'll notice changes in me too, though I don't think I've lost much weight.'

‘You look worn out,' Avril said with all the frankness which Miranda remembered. ‘I guess driving is pretty tense, what with the blackout an' all.' She hesitated. ‘Steve still all right? Do you realise how much we've lost touch over the past three years? Oh, I know we've exchanged scrappy little letters from time to time, and we did meet up once, but to be honest, Miranda, if it hadn't been for this posting I reckon we'd have lost touch altogether. Somehow there was always something more important to do than write letters.'

‘Steve's okay, or he was last night when I telephoned the Mess,' Miranda said. ‘But there's a big offensive coming up . . .' she lowered her voice, ‘I expect you've heard all about it, though it's supposed to be top secret. Anyway, bombing raids over Germany are taking place whenever the weather's good, and so far this summer has been brilliant.' She looked shyly at her friend, then waved a finger under Avril's nose. ‘That, dear Avril, is an engagement ring. I didn't want to get engaged. I had a silly superstitious fear that if we did something which made both of us so happy we'd be tempting fate to throw a spanner in the works. But in the end I just wanted to do whatever Steve wanted, and that was to get engaged.'

Avril seized her friend's hand and gazed at the pretty little ring on her third finger. ‘How on earth did he save up the money for this?' she demanded. ‘I don't know much about jewellery prices . . .'

Miranda laughed. ‘He didn't buy it. Do you remember Granny Granger? I think you met her once.'

‘Yes, I remember; a lovely old lady,' Avril said at once. ‘Don't say she's gone for a burton?'

‘Good heavens, no,' Miranda said, looking shocked. ‘Steve and I had a spot of leave and decided to take it at the same time, and go home to Liverpool. While we were there Steve told Granny Granger that we wanted to get engaged and would do so as soon as he could afford to buy a ring. Whereupon the old lady trotted up to her bedroom and came down again with this dear little ring in a tiny green velvet box. She said it had belonged to her mother, so it's really old, an antique almost, and since she meant to leave it to Steve in her will he might as well have it now, so we got engaged on the spot.'

Avril whistled admiringly. ‘Ain't you the lucky one? But shouldn't the ring have gone to Steve's mother rather than to Steve? It seems an odd thing to leave to a feller.'

‘Not really. Mrs Mickleborough will get Granny's engagement ring and all the rest of her jewellery, which isn't saying much. Of course she gave this to Steve on impulse really, but we both took it as a sign that she thought getting engaged was a good idea, and I have to say we've never regretted it. It's – it's kind of nice to belong to someone else, to look towards a shared future . . . oh, I don't know, I'm not putting it very well, but I guess you understand.' She hesitated as a large rowboat full of RAF personnel splashed its way past, then spoke diffidently. ‘Have you got a boyfriend, queen? You never mentioned one in your letters, but then you didn't write often, or at much length . . .'

Avril cut across the sentence, the colour rising in her cheeks. ‘No, I've not got a boyfriend, though of course I've been out with several people over the last three years. After Gary was killed I could see all too clearly that having a boyfriend in wartime is nowt but a ticket to pain. It's why you look so worn and weary. I'll bet you spend ninety per cent of your time worrying that something bad will happen to Steve. Well, I can do without that. Maybe I'm selfish – a great many men have told me I'm hard – but I don't mean to hand over my heart for breaking twice in one lifetime.'

Miranda nodded. ‘I know what you mean, because I suppose it was the reason why I didn't want to get engaged,' she admitted. ‘But you're not just shutting the door on the possibility of being hurt, queen, you're shutting it on the chance of happiness. And it takes two to
tango, as they say. What about the feller? Isn't he allowed a voice in this decision? And don't tell me there isn't a feller. What about Julian; what about Pete? I know you write to them both and I bet there are lots of others chasing you, because with that blonde mop you always had chaps in tow when we were living in Russell Street and I can't believe it's any different now.'

‘Oh, them!' Avril said contemptuously. ‘They're just pals, as you used to be so fond of remarking. As for new blokes, you obviously don't know balloon sites. They are – were, I should say – all staffed by women except the sergeant in charge who was usually a man, so us balloon ops didn't have the same opportunities that you get as an MT driver. Of course we went to RAF stations for dances and social events, but I never got close to anyone, not really close. And looking at the strain on your face, I can only say I'm grateful I never got involved.'

Miranda was in the middle of admitting that she did worry about Steve most of the time when she heard a clock begin to strike and jumped to her feet, knocking over the bottle of pop and casting crumbs to the four winds. ‘Heavens, I'm supposed to be back at the gharry, loading the fellers up,' she said, beginning to scramble up the bank, with Avril in hot pursuit. ‘Oh, damn, we're going to have to run. I dare not be late, because everyone in my hut knows you're arriving today and will assume I'm risking their passes because my friend missed her connection.'

Miranda had always had friends amongst the other MT drivers and mechanics who shared the care and maintenance of all the vehicles on the station, but none had
suited her as well as Avril. Perhaps it was their shared background, or the fact that they were the only two Liverpudlians in their group, but whatever the reason the two girls, who had been close when they shared the flat, grew closer still. A couple of times Steve suggested that Avril might like to make up a foursome with a member of his crew, but in the end Miranda seized the opportunity, when she and Steve both got a forty-eight, to suggest that they should spend it alone together. ‘I'll explain to Avril, and we can enjoy ourselves with a clear conscience,' she told Steve when she telephoned him at his Mess. ‘I'm not suggesting we should share anything other than a meal and a dance at the Samson and Hercules though, so don't you go getting ideas.'

Steve said virtuously that of course he would expect nothing but friendship from a fiancée so high-minded. Chuckling, Miranda told him not to be so cheeky and replaced the receiver before he could reply.

She told Avril that she and Steve meant to spend their forty-eight together, since the weather was still blissfully fine. Indeed, it had been blissfully fine throughout Operation Overlord, as the invasion became known, and the thousands of Allied soldiers now pushing their way across German-occupied France must be grateful to have the weather on their side. All leave had been cancelled, but Steve's Lancaster, overflying occupied France in order to bomb Germany, had limped home after sustaining a good deal of damage, and this enabled the crew to ask permission to take a forty-eight whilst their Lancaster, which they had named Lindy Lou, had her many injuries repaired.

Leave usually started after work so that one might
catch the gharry either to the nearest railway station or into the city, and on this occasion Steve and Miranda met on Castle Meadow, each with a kitbag slung over one shoulder, and Steve, at least, with an anticipatory gleam in his eyes. Kissing was forbidden whilst in uniform, and one was always in uniform, but Steve had already planned what they would do. ‘We'll catch a bus out of the city heading for Ringland Hills,' he said, starting to walk towards the bus station. ‘There's a nice little pub in the village which will do us supper and only charge us five shillings, or ten bob for bed and breakfast,' he said, taking her arm in a proprietorial manner. ‘You'll love it; all the chaps say the food's prime, the beds soft and the landlady discreet.'

Miranda, giggling, gave Steve a shove. ‘Enough of that,' she said severely. ‘It all sounds fine apart from the landlady. She can keep her discretion to herself.'

They reached Surrey Street and found the bus they wanted waiting, and very soon they were in the cosy little pub with a remarkably good meal on the table before them while Steve, having reluctantly booked two rooms, spent a good deal of energy trying to persuade Miranda that sharing would be much more fun than going off to their own beds after supper.

When they had first entered the pub the bar had been empty, but now it was beginning to fill up, and Steve hushed his companion when she began to argue. ‘I was only teasing,' he said in an undertone. ‘Of course there isn't a law against not sharing a room if you're engaged.' Then his voice sharpened. ‘Oh, hell; there's a face I recognise! She's not in uniform – a bit old for that probably – but I'm sure I know her from somewhere. Oh, heck,
she's coming over. I do hate it when somebody whose name I can't recall expects to be recognised and made welcome, and all you can do is wonder who the devil it is.'

Miranda was beginning to say that it was his imagination, that the woman was not really heading for them but had spotted a vacant place on the bench beside her, when she broke off short. ‘Lynette!' she squeaked excitedly. ‘What on earth are you doing here?'

The former member of the Madison Players approached, beaming, and Miranda jumped to her feet to give her a hearty kiss. ‘I were just about to ask you the same, kiddo,' Lynette Rich said cheerily. ‘It's the last place I should have expected to meet someone I know.' She dug a plump elbow into Miranda's ribs. ‘We come here, me and my American feller, to have a quiet weekend away from all the fuss and botheration, and who's the first person I set me eyes on? It's little Miranda Lovage, though she ain't so little now. They say it's bad manners to ask a woman her age, but when I last seen you you were just a child, and now I suppose you must be nineteen or twenty.' She turned to stare piercingly into Steve's face. ‘Do I reckernise you, young feller? I hopes as you haven't brought my little friend here with the intention of misbehavin'.'

Steve grinned. ‘We've seen each other before, when Miranda took me round to the theatre a couple of times whilst she was searching for her mother,' he said. ‘You're a dancer, aren't you?'

The plump, smiling lady nodded her peroxided curls vigorously. That's me; or that
was
me rather. I'm with ENSA; we entertain the troops . . . well, you know all that, and this was to be a bit of a treat between shows
because once it's safe to do so they'll send us across to the jolly old Continong to entertain the troops over there. It'll be a change from . . .'

She stopped speaking as a voice hailed her, and a heavily built, middle-aged American with so many stripes on his sleeve and medals on his chest that Miranda guessed he was someone high up in the USAF crossed the room and put a hand on his companion's arm. ‘Gee, honey, you find friends everywhere,' he said admiringly. ‘But we're in a bit of a fix, sweetie; the landlady says they've not got a room.' He pointed an accusing finger at Steve. ‘This young guy has took 'em both, so unless I can persuade your pals to give one up . . .'